Whoopi tells Pratts they'll 'be in the street'

Spencer and Heidi Pratt, the young MTV-bred couple fresh from quitting NBC's I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here because they were apparently unaware that it was a test of their survival skills, appeared on ABC'sThe View this morning.

There, for one of the first times, the fame-seeking twosome was called out. On live television, they got a brusque lesson in money management and having a clue.

The first question was why Speidi quit the reality contest, an internationally popular format that is airing from the jungle of Costa Rica. "I've been eating lots of humble pie before I came here," said Spencer. "We had no idea. We didn't watch the show before we signed up for it."

Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who went through much worse when she found her own fame on Survivor, wasn't having it. "You didn't read the contract?" she asked with a sweet smile.

"I learned a life lesson," said Spencer. "I trusted agents and lawyers and managers--"

The five hosts let them prattle for a while in their utterly transparent efforts to establish themselves as a set of characters -- Spencer claimed the couple was as popular as Obama and Heidi literally applied hair spray she's endorsing in the most contrived and condescending display of branding on recent record.

Finally, when it became too much to bear, co-host Whoopi Goldberg swooped in and told the smarmy couple what everyone was thinking.

"Can I just say it right now?" she said. "As much business as you guys have done, you with the hair spray... You better get yourself together or you're gonna be in the street."

The audience applauded.

"You can't answer these questions [about your contracts]... You are going to have to take responsibility. You two are old now. Last year, it was cute. Now you're adults."

"I live in the moment," Spencer said in their defense. "I don't plan that far ahead."

"You can only live in the moment when you're wealthy," warned Joy Behar.

Unexpectedly upbraided before a national audience for their mismanagement, the couple, which usually expects interviewers to perform as their playthings, found themselves defending their financial future.

"We do have a lot of things that we're planning," Heidi protested vaguely. "We do have a future. We do have step-by-step. It may seem very spontaneous and crazy but there is always a rhyme to the reason. We do have things that we want to accomplish."

"I'm actually Pratt/Palin 2015," Spencer said. His math, it turns out, is as bad as his legal skills: He meant 2012.

"Don't, please, expect me to vote for you as president," said Barbara Walters. Nice zinger, Babs.

I guess I won't need to watch Judge Judy or Suze Orman today. Whoopi gave me the satisfaction of witnessing a smack-down of these unctuous kids with some solid, and embarrassingly simple, financial advice. But will the Pratt brats listen? About as long as I'll watch them abuse my attention like this.